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654,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China

Today is World Aids Day, and the state-owned Xinhua News Agency reports that “there were 654,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China by the end of September, with 201,000 deaths.” According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sexual transmission accounted for 94 percent of infections. In addition, there were 96,000 new cases reported in the first nine months of 2016.

Xinhua also notes today that a “domestically developed, long-acting injectable HIV drug has been put forward for approval by the China Food and Drug Administration, and will become the first of its kind to be generally available if approved.” The drug is known as Albuvirtide.

Meanwhile, The New York Times has published a Q&A with Dr. Gao Yaojie, a retired gynecologist who uncovered a major HIV outbreak in central China in the late 1990s. The outbreak remains a sensitive topic in China even now, as it was caused by “an unsanitary blood collection and sales network, abetted by local officials.” Impoverished residents of Henan Province were selling their blood. After plasma was extracted, “the rest of the pooled blood, now often carrying HIV or other infections, was reinjected into donors, so they could give more frequently.”

Sweden the first country to achieve UNAIDS/WHO 90-90-90 target

Sweden has become the first country to achieve the UNAIDS/World Health Organization (WHO) 90-90-90 target, research published in HIV Medicine shows. At the end of 2015, 90% of HIV cases in Sweden were diagnosed, 99.8% of people were linked to care and 95% of people taking antiretrovirals for at least six months had a viral load below 50 copies/ml.

“We believe that Sweden is the first country to achieve the UNAIDS/WHO 90-90-90 goal,” comment the investigators.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has dramatically reduced rates of HIV-related illness and death and the infectiousness of people taking treatment.